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61 Comments
- Synova, on 09/04/2008, -1/+19Black holes are sized by the radius of their event horizon, since beyond that point one can never really know what is going on.
- bioncinola, on 09/04/2008, -5/+21LARGE HADRON COLLIDER
All mankind's enemy aliens are cackling with glee right about now... - inactive, on 09/04/2008, -3/+12Have you considered the possibility that you are at least somewhat... gay? And that this is part of a greater identity crisis?
- inactive, on 09/04/2008, -0/+9Thats probably the best proof yet that its not dangerous. We have a device that conceivably cause quantum fluctuations or strangelets, and is a threat to the entire universe. For some reason our zoo keepers have not prevented its activation yet;)
- inactive, on 09/04/2008, -0/+6Actually, there is a whole range of math that describes what it going on inside the event horizons of black holes, but the results are really incredulous, and seem to contradict other bits of scientific consensus(like big bang cosmology for instance). Because of that, those sorts of things don't make it into your university texts. You have to go read and grok a bunch of really hard math to sort of understand what the math implies.
- fquednau, on 09/04/2008, -0/+4"classically" you can calculate the schwarzschild radius as (grav.constant * mass) / speed of light squared. So yes, the event horizon grows proportional with mass.
- atgmac, on 09/04/2008, -0/+4Titles generally use title case.
- Gonasadude, on 09/04/2008, -1/+5That was not Quantum physics at all. That was just some science fiction crap.
- rye419, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3Wouldn't this negate any theory of the big bang originating from a total gravitational collapse of a previous universe?
- lornefs, on 09/04/2008, -1/+4It doesn't go anywhere it just compresses and adds to the mass of the object.
Remember, a black hole is just an object so massive that even light cannot escape it's gravity well.
You also have to remember that ordinary matter is mostly empty space and the constituent particles are incredibly small.
Oh and you don't have to wonder about these things, read a book or even google it. - HumanityLost, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3Racist.
- inactive, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3Space and time flip.
- elambing, on 09/04/2008, -1/+3ah, no bigger than 50 billion suns? no need to worry then
... - inactive, on 09/04/2008, -0/+2Well, you have nailed down why they don't talk about it.
- dignation, on 09/04/2008, -0/+2Ew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkgMbU-we1o - inactive, on 09/04/2008, -1/+3...And what does the math imply, for people who can't be bothered?
- inactive, on 09/04/2008, -1/+2Well the problem with that theory is... There are stellar black holes, and super massive black holes. Where are the medium sized black holes? havent found any, and it seems like we should find ~some~
The cosmological implication seems to be that Black holes are fixed to the size they are when they were formed. - youannoyme, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1Wow. Scientist or not, you sir, are in a rather small majority. Black holes are pretty accepted as being observed. And an article has no such responsibility to present both sides. A scientific article need only represent a theory, and a theory need do nothing else than try to explain some phenomenon while suggesting new things to test which will verify it.
Besides. If you were really "in the know" on the topic, you'd have called yourself and Astronomer or Astrophysicist. Or at least a Physicist. - sockpuppets, on 09/04/2008, -3/+4I wonder where all this matter goes. Is it still techinically part of our dimension? Does it go to a different brane? Is it possible it sits on a different brane or dimension until it collectively reaches critical mass and then somehow is the catalyst that "rebangs" our visible dimension in a recurring cycle? Does it go wherever the majority of gravitons go?
Quantum physics freaks me out, I wish I had the mind to understand it all. But I try. - MWeather, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1"actually no. Black holes do indeed grow. This is known because they *do* consume mass, and the radius of the event horizon directly relates to their mass."
We also know that they evaporate, so consuming mass doesn't necessarily mean they grow. - iansmith6, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1Aside from the fact that the nearest black hole we know of is at the center of the galaxy and will take about 40,000 years or so at light speed just to get the data BACK, we can pretty much guess what will happen to it. :-)
- warragul, on 09/05/2008, -0/+1In a chapter of his book The Collapsing Universe Asimov states the the average density of matter within the Swartzchild Radius of a black hole containing all the matter in the universe would be pretty much the same as in the universe we inhabit. That leaves open the Douglas Adams possibility that it has already happened.
- sockpuppets, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1Quantum physics is absolutely in play here. Black holes are a prime example of why we need a unified theory, because they are both large and small.
While general relativity describes a black hole as a region of empty space with a pointlike singularity at the center and an event horizon at the outer edge, the description changes when the effects of quantum mechanics are taken into account. - iansmith6, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1I like the idea that the matter falling into a black hole never actually makes it in.
As the gravity increases, time slows down, so to fall fully into a black hole would take infinite time.
Since black holes eventually evaporate due to Hawking radiation, mass will fall in, slow down and eventually evaporate out before reaching the center.
This neatly avoids any issues with having a singularity. There isn't one because the hole never fully collapses. - BitKid, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1I don't think god would really let that happen guys seriously.
- fx666, on 09/04/2008, -1/+2This article does not provide a different estimate of the same astronomical data showing that those regions of space do not contain black holes. For many scientists, including myself, the black hole is a purely theoretical object whose existence has not been confirmed yet. An article is supposed to present both sides of scientific spectrum, but this one does not.
- inactive, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1Trippy.
- l337dexter, on 09/04/2008, -1/+2*screaming like britney spears* Supermassive black hole!!
- Jarasmen, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1Every hardon I can think of is definetely heterosexual and/or completely platonic, sorry.
- StaticThunder, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1Motion towards the singularity becomes timelike in nature, thats what people mean by "space and time" flip. Your eventual encounter with the singularity is as inexorable as your eventual encounter with tomorrow.
If we were in a closed universe, our eventual encounter with the big crunch at the end of time would look very much like falling towards the singularity in a black hole. As it is, the black hole we are living in looks to be evaporating. - inactive, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1Squeeee!
- youannoyme, on 09/04/2008, -0/+0The bouncing universe model has already been nearly ubiquitously abandoned.
- Jarasmen, on 09/04/2008, -4/+4Am I the only one that always, and ***** ALWAYS, reads that as "hardon"? I mean, I think that's silly myself, yet I can't stop it o_O
- belebih, on 09/04/2008, -6/+6They should just check the inside of Dick Cheney's heart. Though I fear they may just get sucked in by the darkness, never to be seen again.
- youannoyme, on 09/04/2008, -0/+0actually no. Black holes do indeed grow. This is known because they *do* consume mass, and the radius of the event horizon directly relates to their mass.
Instead what this actually implicates is that there are essentially two causes of black holes. Stellar ones, which come from super nova, and then maybe eat some of their immediate neighbors. And then super massive ones which come about during galaxy formation, which would be why every galaxy with a bulge has a Super Massive Black Hole at the center.
Of course, this is not a final certainty; we are still looking and hoping to see a SMBH. But the idea that Black Holes grow is not under question, just if they can grow from the smaller variety to the larger variety. - youannoyme, on 09/04/2008, -0/+0its irrelevant, but actually, unless it is a rather small black hole, the probe will not be ripped apart before it loses contact with us because it crossed the Event Horizon.
- PrometheusBorn, on 09/04/2008, -2/+2Supermassive....
- youannoyme, on 09/04/2008, -0/+0Nope. First Hawking Radiation isn't proven yet. It's very likely, the mechanism behind it is rather simple, but it has not yet been detected. But even so, the rate at which it would evaporate is absolutely dwarfed by the rate at which active black holes can consume mass. (The timing is about right so that super ancient black holes may or may not be about to the end of their lifespan...) Black holes only (supposedly) evaporate away to nothing when there is no food for it to eat for a veeery long time.
- karmabandit, on 09/05/2008, -0/+0What youannoyme said... and well said, too.
- zelgaddiss, on 09/04/2008, -3/+3Maybe as the black hole swallows more matter the event horizon's diameter gets bigger?
- nwaekempi, on 04/01/2009, -0/+0THE BLACK HOLE - COSMIC KIND OF BEAST IS AS BIG AS COMPLEX BUILDING HEART CENTER TEMPLE HOUSE BODY OF MANHOOD IN ONENESS WITH SOUL MATE DIVINE STARGOD COMPANION IN ONE BODY ORDER COMPLIANT RING OF ENAGEMENT AS SEEN IN WWW.UMUEKEMPI.COM.
- youannoyme, on 09/04/2008, -0/+0haha, close. but not quite. First, Hawking radiation (while I think we will) has not been observed. We are still waiting to detect the final evaporation, which would be the only portion of it energetic enough to detect. (Yay! hopfully the Hadron allows this...)
Second, the whole time argument does not work. When doing GR, you can't hold on the notion that time is the same everywhere for all observers. The effect you just quoted is something only seen when observing across reference frames. I.E. you are far away and watching something fall into the hole. If you were to fall into the hole yourself, you would observe no such trouble and you'd zip right on through to the other side... - pe5t1lence, on 09/04/2008, -3/+2They are hiding behind dark matter (aka the aether of this generation of physicists)!
- pe5t1lence, on 09/04/2008, -2/+1Really ***** big.
- neocr0n, on 09/04/2008, -2/+1Too big for us to comprehend I'm sure. We need to send a probe into one just to see what happens, bound to get some staggering data sent back before the probe is ripped apart.
- fx666, on 09/05/2008, -2/+1Only 50% of the physicists accept that there are black holes in the universe, the others hold a different opinion. The problem with the black holes is that they violate the covariance principle according to which laws of the nature are the same in all frames of reference. For an observer located in a coordinate system in the vicinity of a black hole it takes a finite amount of time for a ray of light to reach the interior of a black hole, while for a distant observer the impact time is infinite. For more information on this discrepancy, see the book Relativity and Stars by Zeldovich and Novikov. I sincerely wish I could recommend a simpler book for your inferior mind, but, unfortunately, there is none-- you need to have a PhD in Physics to fully understand it, which is something that you do not have and never will. For you information, I have PhD in Physics.
- rahulkolasseri, on 09/04/2008, -3/+2as big as a goatse done by a really tanned guy
- inactive, on 09/04/2008, -1/+0Aren't there ring type black holes?
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